Is Wales finally claiming Hay for its own? The town is half in Wales, but in years of coming to the festival I have sometimes wondered. Bilingual signs are the nearest to a sense of foreign parts, and the occasional inclusion of Welsh writers and exhibitors has seemed token.

Not this year. The Welsh National Library chose Hay for the launch of its online compendium of Welsh journalism at the festival, a project way ahead of England's equivalent. The Oxfam young writers' competition was won by a novel first written in Welsh and the completion of the Pevsner guides to Welsh buildings with the volume on Gwynedd was celebrated by its co-author, Julian Orbach, at a packed meeting.

More than that, for once I detected that questions from the floor, on Gwynedd and in the session on my book on Welsh castles, houses and churches, had Welsh accents predominating. References to the beauty of Wales, to its growing political cohesion and to a need for it to show greater confidence in selling itself were all greeting with rounds of applause. These were Welsh audiences for sure.

I have a growing sense of a place whose identity is in transition. Wales's emergence nine years ago, however tentative, with its own regional government can now be seen as seminal. Not for 600 years since Glendower had Wales enjoyed anything remotely like self-rule. The number of voters prepared to tolerate the much-abused Welsh assembly rises by the year.

As in Scotland, the establishment of something like self-government has been enough to draw attention and controversy to the capital and to its political apparatus. Unlike in Scotland, this had to emerge afresh. While the participants have been of variable quality, it was noticeable how many questioners referred to them, warts and all. The abolition of devolution is already unthinkable.

Whether the literary culture of Wales, represented in Welsh at the national Eisteddfod, can co-operate with what is in truth Wales's premier literary festival – but in English – remains to be seen. Hay prides itself on its national and international status, but that status is essentially English. Just as I believe the Eisteddfod should be more open to Welsh writers in English, so Hay should welcome the gorsedd and its extraordinary literary richness into its marquees. How about a "Welsh day" at Hay?